A Banquet To Commemorate The Battle Of Waterloo

A week in the life of a local councillor

Cllr Sam Hearn who represents the Riverside ward in Chiswick, is chairman of the Chiswick Area Forum. He has written this account of his week as a busy local councillor

Friday 5th June: Catching up with emails on my I-Pad. I have decided to apply to be a member of the Hounslow Pension Board. This Board is a new innovation “forced” on to local authorities by Eric Pickles.

Saturday 6th June: Running the Councillors’ Surgery again. Four residents attended this time. None were constituents of mine but I hope that I have been able to help them. The matters raised were fairly standard but the specific circumstances of each case were unusual; noisy neighbours, failure to issue a blue badge and an allegedly rude council officer.

Sunday 7th June: I have never sung at the world premiere of a musical before. Rock in a Hard Place was truly amazing. St Paul’s Church Grove Park was packed and from the start the audience response was incredibly positive. I have bought the T- Shirt.

Monday 8th June: Brief attendance at Strand on the Green School Governors’ meeting and then on to the Conservative Group Meeting. I was heartened by some genuine and thoughtful discussion of how to be a constructive and effective opposition. So often what we are asked to approve or comment on is already a ‘fait accompli’. As a Group we have to work hard to be more than just ‘noises off’. Research by Cllrs Todd and Lynch demonstrated the value of an active opposition group.

Tuesday 9th June: Joined friends attending a Battle of Waterloo commemoration banquet at an historic venue in central London. Top marks to my old colleagues from ‘Past Pleasures’ who added some novel twists to the evening’s entertainment.

Thursday 11th June: To Mogden Sewage Works for one of the regular so called Residents Meetings. Foul odours have emanated from the site for three weeks and residents representatives and the excellent Council Officers from LBH wanted answers from Thames Water. It was worrying to hear that in the first five months of 2015 there were four incidents when the sewage works discharged untreated sewage into the river Thames. Not pleasant but a fact of life river users should be aware of.

June 12, 2015